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Big Board

A black and white ad of the Big Board. The image is big but very informative. Notice how this is a computer for real men -- it doesn't even come with a power supply (read the ad, the user is expected to provide their own). 173 kbyte JPEG.


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Make and Model

Big Board, made by Digital Research Computers. No, they had nothing to do with Digital Research, the software company.

Search Altavista for this computer, or maybe Google, Yahoo!, Metacrawler, or look for related discussions with Deja.

Product Family

Chronology

1980(?).

Emphasis

First contact with computers, Programming, Hardware hacking.

Availability

Unknown. (?)

Pricing

USD 279 in US, 1980.

Trivia

George W. Gray writes: ''Although initially sold in kit form, the Big Board was later sold as a system by Xerox. The Big Board featured a Z80A processor running at 4 MHz (I think the board could support an 8 MHz Z80), 80x24 video (ADM-3a compatible), 64 kbytes RAM (expandable), 8 kbytes ROM (the 'PFM' monitor ROM), parallel and serial ports, CP/M, on-board disk controller (1771 controller) and several other goodies of the day.

''Xerox was so impressed with this machine that it bought the rights to it, changed the design slightly (added support for 5.25-inch disks instead of the 8-inch that was common then) and packaged it in a very nice beige cabinet (plastic) that housed a 10-inch monochrome display. The keyboard was in a similarly styled detachable case. It was dubbed the Xerox 820.

''I consider this a milestone in that it predated the PC by almost a year. So what? If you look at the internals, the PC motherboard was laid out almost exactly the same as the Big Board. In fact, legend has it that IBM had, at one point, considered the Big Board as the heart of the PC even though IBM was developing a similar product in house. Maybe they used the Big Board as a blueprint. Also, the Xerox 820 hit the market about six months before the PC. Too bad they did not have enough time to capitalize on it. I had an 820... wish I still did.'' Tom Crawford, an owner of the Big Board, adds: ''This was my first "real" home computer. Assembled and tested it myself, added two of the monster 8-inch SSSD floppy drives (250 each; bought used for $100 each!). Put CP/M-80 on it, and used it a lot for several years, until I justified the several thousand dollars my first clone XT cost.''

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Alexios Chouchoulas (alexios@tardis.ed.ac.uk). This page was generated automatically. All pending patents, trademarks and copyrights appearing on this page are acknowledged. Last update: Thu Nov 2 09:00:38 GMT 2000. Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional DTD.